your slaps don't stick
by JessicaFay
Summary: series of clato oneshots that describe my headcanons for them, chronologically. starts with cato meeting clove. for project pull.


When Cato is first introduced to Clove, he is eleven years old and at District 2's training academy and in the middle of slicing a mannequin in half with a long silver sword. At first, when he spots her standing by herself in the corner, she doesn't stand out to him: there's nothing special about her dull brown hair or her pale pink skin or her slouchy posture or the way she seems to be hatefully glaring at every other person in the room. In fact, she strikes him as awkward, and stand-offish, and frankly quite unappealing, and he writes her off immediately as somebody he definitely will _not_ be forming an alliance with.

But then the girl steps forward, out of the shadows, and makes her way to one of the academy's impressive knife displays, and Cato can't help but cross his arms over his chest, intrigued. He observes from a distance as she selects several of the weapons and then moves to stand in front of a group of targets, rolling her shoulders back and shaking out her arms. And Cato has to bite his lip to keep himself from laughing out loud, because there is no way in _hell _somebody that small and thin and weak-looking is going to be able to hit even one target from that distance.

However, she does.

And she doesn't just hit one target; she hits all of them, right in the center, never faltering and never losing focus and never, ever missing. And the skill and grace with which she moves is incredible; he finds himself enthralled with this girl, enchanted by how her eyes lock right into her target and how her fingers grip each knife with just the right amount of pressure and how her whole body, every part of it, shifts smoothly forward with each throw, resulting in complete and total and utterly astounding accuracy.

It's beautiful, really. Everything about it. Everything about _her_.

She's not dull at all, Cato realizes, while he watches her reset the targets and return back to her starting position. In fact, now that she's in better light, he sees that her hair is shiny and her skin even glows a bit and her eyes are much brighter than he expected. She is still wearing that dark glare, but Cato now recognizes it as more of an expression of intense focus than one that bears any maliciousness.

But what really makes her much less than dull is how _good _she is. How strong she is, how tough she is, how talented and skilled and perfect she is.

And Cato decides that he most definitely wants her as an ally now.

x

The girl's name is Clove, Cato learns the next day, by eavesdropping on her conversations with trainers. "Clove" is a nice name, he thinks; it rolls off his tongue easily, and it starts with "C" just like his own name, so he's automatically inclined to like it even more.

But it takes a whole week for Cato to actually talk to her. He's not sure why; usually it's easy for him to just walk up to people and befriend them, but something about Clove is different, is special. For a reason he doesn't quite understand, Cato wants to make sure that he doesn't mess this up, doesn't ruin his chance to get on this new girl's good side.

So for days, he just watches, studying her and learning her and finding himself kind of _fascinated _by her, in a way that he has never been fascinated with another human being.

He notices that for the most part, she keeps to herself, speaking to nobody besides the trainers and only interacting with other kids to practice fighting. Cato doesn't really understand that, her aversion to social interaction—he's friends with nearly everyone in his class, and it doesn't negatively affect his skills or change the fact that he would kill every single one of them if circumstances called for it. However, her odd avoidance of other people just makes her that much more interesting to Cato.

He also starts to notice other things about her, smaller things, like the brown-green color of her eyes and the cat-like way with which she moves and the series of freckles running across her ivory cheeks and nose. Whenever he sees a scar or a bruise or a cut on the surface of her skin, he finds that he can't help but wonder how she got it: who she was training with, what weapon caused it, how much it hurt and how long it took to heal.

And, for reasons he still doesn't understand (or doesn't want to), he starts to develop a burning desire to talk to her, to learn more about her, to become closer to her.

x

When he finally actually truly approaches her, he doesn't totally mess anything up.

But things don't go exactly how he planned, either.

Because, before he's even finished saying "hello", Clove has lunged at him, has grabbed his shirt collar, and has pinned him against the wall.

It _hurts, _and Cato wasn't expecting it, and for a few moments he is completely disoriented, Clove's face mere inches from his own.

But it takes less than three seconds for Cato to regain his composure, and soon enough he has her pinned to the floor. Before long, they are hitting and kicking and shoving each other, a flurry of hands and feet and skin and nails, trapped in their own world of intense hand-to-hand combat, flesh on flesh and teeth on teeth and bone on bone. All Cato feels is exhilaration is passion and Clove's body pressing against his own, and all he sees is her bright brown-green eyes and the freckles trailing across her face and her pale pink skin and her long brown hair.

And then it's over, and both of them are too exhausted to move, and Cato is drenched in sweat and Clove is struggling to catch her breath. Although the fight had been long and grueling and neither of them had been able to pull off a win, Cato smiles anyway. Without even saying two words to one another, they suddenly understand each other completely, suddenly understand exactly where their relationship is going to go.

They aren't allies. They're never truly going to be. What they are, however, is one another's greatest competition, both equally vicious and brutal and skilled and completely prepared to win whichever Hunger Games they end up being placed in. And Clove knows it, and the trainers know it, and Cato knows it now too.

And he still smiles. Because he and Clove are so similar in nature, because they're both so cruel and heartless and violent and quick to start a fight. Both of them are confident, and stubborn, and tenacious, and with a near-insatiable desire towin, and Cato isn't sure he's ever really understood somebody so completely.

He glances at Clove to see if she's looking at him. She isn't.

After brushing herself off, she stands and turns away from Cato, before walking away with her brown ponytail swinging back and forth over her shoulders.

And she doesn't look at Cato once.


End file.
